


Smoker's Row

by RoryWinchester



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Daredevil (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Canon disabled characters, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Frequent updates, I Have A Lot Of Feelings About Mutants Ok, M/M, Misguided Support Groups, Mutant Hate, Mutant Powers, Mutant Pride, Mutant Rights, Only The Mutants Have Their Powers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Roommates, Short Chapters, Support Groups, kind of an AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 18:46:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3739480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoryWinchester/pseuds/RoryWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is in the ICU when Bucky first meets his mutant boyfriend.</p><p> </p><p>May or may not have been inspired by the Flatland Funk Donors' song "Smoker's Row"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They met at the hospital, so Bucky should have known something awful would happen if he tried to befriend the guy. But Bucky wasn’t so great at the whole judgement thing. The guy was smoking a cheap cigar, and it occurred to Bucky he’d only ever actually seen people smoke cigars in old movies. But he didn’t question it. Instead, he pulled his cigarettes out of jean pockets and threw glance at the other guy, extending the simple smoker’s common ground.

“Got a light?”

Cigar Guy looked Bucky up and down, and Bucky felt vaguely like prey being sized up. But the guy just handed him a blue Zippo. Bucky smiled and struck a cigarette before handing it back. He didn’t expect Cigar Guy to say anything, but he instead opened with one of the worst possible conversation starters ever - “Kind of fucked up that there’s a smoker’s pavillion beside the cemetery.”

Bucky chuckled, caught off guard. You couldn’t technically smoke in the hospital, on account of it being a hospital, but you could smoke on the sidewalk by the cemetery across the street. “It… yeah. I don’t know who thought it was a good idea, but…” He gestured vaguely with his cigarette before taking a drag. “Well, I guess it’s kind of smart. I mean, who wants to smoke by a cemetery? That’s depressing.”

“You’re here,” Cigar Guy observes. Bucky shrugged.

“So’re you. I’m just waiting for visiting hours, since Stevie got his stupid ass in the ICU again.” He leaned his head against the railing, failing at making a smoke ring.  
Cigar Guy made a funny noise. “Oh…” When Bucky looked over, he seemed disgruntled. Bucky laughed.

“You thought I was here for this, huh?” he asked, waving the hand of the prosthetic arm with a little flourish. Cigar Guy nodded, but it wasn’t really a nod, just a noncommittal head jerk. Bucky smirked. “Naah. Got that took care of a while ago.”

Cigar Guy grunted. “Why’re you here?”

“Steve kind of got piledrived by a mugger. It’s a thing. It happens, mostly ‘cause he’s an idiot.”

Cigar Guy made a face. “If he got mugged-”

Bucky snorted. “You think he got mugged. No. Nothing like that. He’s a damn bleedin’ heart, Steve is.” He took a deep drag and slumped into the bench beside Cigar Guy. “He’s an idiot.”

“Sorry to hear about your boyfriend.”

Bucky blushed and spluttered. “Oh, no, he’s not - we don’t… he’s my friend. Just my friend. Just…” He trailed off. Cigar Guy was smirking, clearly enjoying this. Bucky scowled.

“Not important.”

Bucky huffed. “What’re you here for? Or who, I guess. They don’t tend to let patients sneak out to smoke.”

“My friend Wade.” Cigar Guy shrugged. “Not the ICU, but he’s pretty bad. Then again, it is a hospital.”

Cigar Guy didn’t seem to want to offer his friend’s condition, and Bucky wasn’t one to pry. “That sucks.” His watch beeped, and he stood, stamping his butt out in the public ashtray. “Visiting hours. See you later, maybe?”

Cigar Guy smirked. “Maybe. See ya, James.”

And Bucky was panicked and confused for a good ten minutes until he got to the ICU and the first thing that _bastard_ Steve pointed out was that he had forgotten to take off his nametag after work.


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky beat Cigar Guy to Smoker’s Row today. The shorter man didn’t quite smile or frown when he saw Bucky, but something happened to his face. Bucky decided to take it as a good sign, since he just sank onto the bench across from Bucky, toying with what looked like a cardboard cup sleeve.

“James.”

“Nobody calls me James. It’s Bucky,” he corrected. Cigar Guy started to smirk, and Bucky scowled at him. “Don’t laugh.”

“I ain’t laughing. My best friend calls herself ‘Rogue’. Bucky. Good name. I’m also James, but folks call me Logan.”

“James and James,” Bucky joked, “it’s like a bad nineties sitcom.”

Cigar Guy - Logan, now - snorted. “Doesn’t help that your name is Bucky.”

Bucky pouted. “No fair! You said you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I said I wasn’t laughing then.”

Bucky slunk down, making a face, which just made Logan actually laugh. “You’re a terrible friend.”

Logan arched an eyebrow. “You just learned my name, bub. It takes a bit more than that to qualify as friends.”

Bucky shrugged. “Most of the people I meet are friends of friends. I guess I don’t know how not to treat strangers like I’ve known them for years.”

Logan looked at Bucky like he was appraising him, and Bucky got that feeling of being prey again. “Well, you’ll have someone to show off if ever we become friends.”

Bucky looked up at Logan, puzzled. “What?”

Logan just stood, laughing. He scrawled something on the cup sleeve and pressed in into Bucky’s hand, walking away.

Bucky didn’t look until Logan was gone, and dancing around the cardboard were ten numbers in a large, messy print.


	3. Chapter 3

Bucky called the next day. Steve was finally out of the ICU, so no Smoker’s Row today. The phone had barely finished ringing once before someone on the other end picked up.

 

“Who might I have the pleasure of speaking to?” drawled a voice the was low, syrupy, and distinctly not Logan’s. _Must be a house phone,_ Bucky thought, _and I thought only Clint had a wall phone?_

“Um, hi. I’m Bucky. Is Logan home?” Bucky bit his lip, fidgeting with his hoodie strings.

 

“Logan ain’t here right now. Can I leave him a message?”

 

“Just, uh, can you tell him I called?”

 

“O’course, mon ami.”

 

‘Mon ami?’ Bucky was really curious as to where this guy was from now. “Thank you.”

 

“I’ll tell him to call back. Au revoir!”

 

“Ah, bye?” There was a click on the other end. Bucky tossed his phone on the desk, slouching in his and Steve’s swivel chair. Steve was smirking evilly at him.

 

“Voicemail?”

 

Bucky shook his head. “Some guy with a weird accent picked up. His roommate, I think.”

 

“You sound disappointed.” Steve tugged at the cuff of Bucky’s jeans from where he was curled up on the floor with his sketchbook. “If you met your soulmate while I was in the ICU, I just want you to know that I’m going to be _royally_  pissed.”

 

Bucky scoffed, gently kicking Steve’s hand off. “He ain’t my soulmate, Stevie. Chrissakes, I’ve smoked with the guy twice.”

 

Steve made a face, and Bucky thought he was gonna tell him off for smoking, but apparently making fun of him came first. Typical. “Hey, I only met Peggy ‘cause she was breaking up a fight.”

 

“She wasn’t breaking up a fight, Steve. She was trying to help you. I broke up the fight.”

 

“Right, ‘cause you’re no fun.” Steve leaned against Bucky’s legs, holding up his sketchbook, open to a drawing of Natasha. “Good?”

 

“Looks great, Stevie. Anyways, I don’t even know his last name.”

 

“His last name is Logan.”

 

"His first name is Logan.”

 

“I thought his first name was James, like yours.” Steve made a face. “Maybe Logan is his middle name. Whatever, it isn’t important.” He put his head on Bucky’s knees, batting his eyelashes up at him. “Our little Bucky is growing up,” he cooed.

 

Bucky scowled at him. “You’re a little punk, you know that?”

 

“An’ you’re a jerk,” Steve replied instantly, perhaps instinctually, sprawling his small frame across the floor as big as he could get it. “But I still hang out with you, don’t I?”

Rolling his eyes, Bucky pushed back the chair and stood up. “Right, right. You do your thing. Some of us have to go be social.”

“Have fun at Support Group.” Steve waved at him from the floor, and Bucky snorted.

“What a contradictory sentence.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is going to take a while, as it's... literally it's just exposition of new characters in the first half, and after that it all goes downhill with some mutantphobia. That is, if the characters don't run away from me.


End file.
